Posted on 04/08/2010 11:36:45 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
A West Texas teen filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Archdiocese of San Antonio and Archbishop Jose Gomez alleging repeated sexual assaults by a parish priest, who he says the church's leadership should have known was abusive.
The allegations came just days after Gomez was named to a high-profile post leading the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be formally introduced to parishioners in May.
The lawsuit accuses the Rev. John M. Fiala of repeatedly sexually assaulting the teen, including twice forcing him to have sex at gunpoint when Fiala was the pastor at Sacred Heart of Mary Parish in the remote community of Rocksprings. The lawsuit alleges the incidents occurred in 2007 and 2008, during Gomez's tenure overseeing a swath of south and west Texas.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
“bow down to them and serve them. And apparently, Roman Catholics do not understand those written words.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle nailed a profound truth in one of the Sherlock Holmes novels. Just a throwaway line, really, but the key to so much.
“Mediocrity knows nothing better than itself.”
We Catholics not only understand those written words, we understand the difference between bowing down to and serving an idol on the one hand, and kneeling down *in*the*vicinity*of* religious art to worship the Holy Trinity.
Odd how many protestants just can’t seem to make that distinction, even though they often have religious art in their own churches, and pray in the vicinity of it.
Oh, well, you can’t expect a plowhorse to win the Kentucky Derby.
“And your defense of these pedophile priests is still disgusting.”
I am lacking in charity. It’s one of my worst faults.
Let me try to exercise some now.
You need to pause and reflect that bearing false witness is a sin. A person can lie himself right into Hell.
Nowhere have I defended a pedophile priest, or any misconduct by a priest.
Listen up, now: extending a presumption of innocence until judgment is rendered cannot truthfully be called “defending” those who commit the crime in question.
Sometimes people are wrongly accused, either out of malice or out of honest mistake. That’s why we wait for verdicts.
If you can’t see that, you really shouldn’t be trying to discuss these issues in public.
Victims, lawyers, families, prosecutors, witnesses, even other priests -- all hysterics who misread documents and slander innocent men who simply want to show young boys how much they and the church love them.
And thus this particularly vulgar and destructive scandal is not eradicated from the Roman Catholic church -- because it goes to the very heart of the Roman Catholic church. It defines it.
"Another Christ."
"Another Gospel."
The anti-Catholic bigots here on FR, few as they are, have tried and convicted every one of us, and by the “power” invested in them, have sentenced us all to hell. ;-D
Foolish to play the game. It just gives them more opportunity to lie. People are pretty well familiar with all the drivel they post. Those who believe it, deserve to.
Your statements are nothing but drivel. They have been made a hundred times, and every time they are shown to be wrong, egregiously wrong, they are put away, to be dragged out again on the next RF Catholic thread.
lolol. You're in fine form tonight. Lots of laughs. Perhaps you've missed the many many threads where Roman Catholics tell us they pray to Mary and to dead saints for intercession and mercy and even (gasp) yes, even salvation.
Your own catechism alludes to Mary's supposed responsibility for God's saving grace.
Rome gets so much wrong that it's no wonder its priestcraft is so...conflicted.
Adding nothing to the conversation but sarcasm.
Plain and simple it is news and not Religion or discussion of Religious Beleief -on this premise alone it is easily seen that this a hate mongering thread -this is what hate mongering trolls do and get away with in unmoderated forums.
Second, to suggest that ANY on Free Republic support child sex abuse is bad enough BUT to suggest Catholics do and to get away with it under the guise of "religious discussion" IS condoning a personal attack on all Catholics here...
The question is simple -what on earth does this news of sexual abuse have to do with Religion? Since when did FR allow the same leftist moral relative attack methods we see now in the mass media to be employed here in our Religion Forum? Where does this end --will we next see threads about violent Catholic Tea Party activists because of the Spanish Inquisition?
“And thus this particularly vulgar and destructive scandal is not eradicated from the Roman Catholic church — because it goes to the very heart of the Roman Catholic church. It defines it.”
Your hatred robs you of your reason.
With the exception of the bare fact that people were molested (and just the number that actually were molested; not whatever multiple of that number gives you an adrenaline rush), every allegation you have made has been shown to be false.
That would give a reasonable man pause.
You went from trying to “prove” accusations using misinterpretations of documents, to the naked and utterly unsupported accusation that this scandal “defines” the Catholic Church.
If I ever caught myself acting like that, I would be profoundly upset.
Here. Enlighten yourself. Read this thread where we find that a young priest was charged and found guilty of molesting two young boys and yet he was still permitted to be a priest and work with children and continue his sinful crimes.
"...(Father) Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory."
And yet the errant priest was not defrocked until 1987! Nine years later.
So much for innocent until proven guilty. In the Roman Catholic church, a pedophile priest is innocent even after he's been proven guilty.
That line is against the rules of the FR religion forum.
And my only response to you would be -- where is your compassion for the victims? It is nowhere in evidence.
“Perhaps you’ve missed the many many threads where Roman Catholics tell us they pray to Mary and to dead saints for intercession and mercy and even (gasp) yes, even salvation.”
Missed? No, time and again I’ve seen Catholics attempt to explain Catholicism to you, and then cringed at your total inability to understand what you were being told, and your unwillingness even to try.
It’s embarrassing, really. Like Rodney Dangerfield at a fancy restaurant, only not funny.
“Your own catechism alludes to Mary’s supposed responsibility for God’s saving grace.”
It’s an interesting intellectual problem, really: how to communicate to a person like you that he has misunderstood everything he thinks he knows.
Probably beyond mortal means.
“Rome gets so much wrong”
Fascinating. Dozens, or perhaps even hundreds of people took the time and trouble to explain your errors to you, with great patience and prayerful forbearance in the face of insult after insult and your obdurate refusal to hear, and after all that, you think it’s Holy Mother Church, the Spiritual Bride of Christ, who is wrong.
I have never seen anything analagous except in the behavior of schizophrenics.
LOL!!!! I think the jig is about up for your form of 'religios discussion'...
What exactly am I to rebut -that I support child sex abuse, that the Catholic Religion supports child sex abuse, or both?
We shall see how much more rope they give you...
“That line is against the rules of the FR religion forum.”
Well, since you’ve been violating them with impunity, with lie after lie, I thought I would try saying something true and see what happens.
“And my only response to you would be — where is your compassion for the victims? It is nowhere in evidence.”
To say that I have no compassion for the victims, and that on the flimsy grounds that we are discussing something else just now, not only violates the forum rules, it sinks below minimum standards of human decency.
I’m not going to follow you any further down that entrance to the netherworld. I’m already gagging on the stench of Satan.
Since when did you become judge and jury regrding Catholics and the Catholic Religion as you have set yourself up to be on this thread.
As to what is in ones heart --no one has to prove anything to you. -The premise of guilty until proven innocent is NOT American -your demanding of such IS a personal attack.
“Here. Enlighten yourself. Read this thread where we find that a young priest was charged and found guilty of molesting two young boys and yet he was still permitted to be a priest and work with children and continue his sinful crimes.”
Enlighten myself with lies? No thanks. I’ll not ride in the Earl of Hell’s weskit pocket with you.
So often the only time Roman Catholic apologists reference the Bible is with ridicule.
Matthew 7:2
Let me help you understand that verse. It means we are to judge according to the same means we are judged -- by, for and through the word of God. It means we do not judge another man's heart because only God knows the heart. But we, as Christians, are most certainly called to judge men's fruit, whether it be good or evil. Matthew 7 continues...
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." -- Matthew 7:15-17"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
And what is the fruit of a man who permits a convicted pedophile to continue "ministering" to young boys and their families?
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